Service Account Managed vs. Unmanaged Keys – How Does GCP Differentiate Them?

[DarwinVinoth]

Hi Team,

While creating a service account through Terraform, I noticed that the JSON keys are mapped as GCP-managed keys. Does this mean they are more secure than user-managed keys created through the console?

Thanks, 
Darwin Vinoth.
Linkedin 

[jamespatrickm]

Hi @DarwinVinoth,

Welcome to Google Cloud Community!

Google places great value on security on all of its products. Rest assured, you get the world’s most advanced security through multiple levels of complementary defenses when you use Google Cloud services.

You can view the different properties of keys in Google Cloud in this document to see if Google-managed encryption keys are sufficient for your security needs. 

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[DarwinVinoth]

No, I want to understand the difference between a customer-managed JSON key in a Service account Vs a Google-managed key in a service account. 

Thanks, 
Darwin Vinoth.
Linkedin